Monday, 24 November 2014

Imagine, if you would, an encounter occurring which has no
relevance to the scenario in which it occurs. It adds no verisimilitude, adds
no flavour to the game milieu, and has no impact or potential for impact on
future events. Moreover, the encounter is neither fun nor challenging in and of
itself. It is a complete waste of time.

Game systems can encourage elements of this kind of
encounter. For instance, in games where resources are intended to “reset” after
each encounter, it is easy enough to remove the potential for impact on future
events.

A hypothetical game system that takes two hours to resolve a chance
glimpse of a deer in the woods would make what is otherwise five seconds of
description a chore that removes all fun. If a system “balanced” encounters so
that the PCs were expected to win, and turned encounters into formula combats
that took hours to resolve, a chance encounter with an ogre (for example) could
easily be removed of its potential fun and challenge.

An adventure writer can also encourage elements of this type
of encounter. “No matter what the PCs do, X will occur….” and “If the PCs kill
X, assume that an identical X takes its place….” certainly reduce the potential
for impact, if the GM actually follows those suggestions.

Yet, few and far between are those encounters which are
completely meaningless, unless the system or the GM makes a clear distinction
between “relevant” and “irrelevant” encounters. If this is the case, yes, you
can make any encounter irrelevant. Doing so does not improve game play IMHO and
IME. Forcing the players to determine the relevance of encounters to their own
goals – or allowing them to create that relevance themselves! – is, to
me, an important aspect of game play.

Crappy encounters do exist. If we take the elements of verisimilitude,
flavour, potential for impact, challenge, and intrinsic fun, we can see that
the more of these elements an encounter has, the better an encounter it will
be. Consequently, the fewer it has, the crappier it will be.

IMHO and IME, adhering to an encounter template or a “plot”
to which all encounters must conform is the most common way to create crappy
encounters. YMMY, and if it does, party on! Never throw away something
that works for you because some jackhole on the internet has a different idea,
or different experiences. “Even if that jackhole is you?” Friend, especially
if that jackhole is me. What works for me might not work for you. And vice
versa.

Here’s the second biggest source of crappy encounters (IMHO
& IME): Lack of planning. In order to have meaning, an encounter must both
have impact on the setting and be able to allow the players to have impact.
That means that there has to be some structure to hang the encounter on, and
that there has to be enough leeway in that structure that the PCs can change it
through their actions.

So long as those conditions exist, no encounter is truly
meaningless. And your chance of having a crappy encounter go down considerably.

Sunday, 23 November 2014

How odd that there are people still who seem to believe that I am preaching the 'one true way.' Feel free to agree with me and expand on what I've written. Most every comment like this highlights the best parts of my post, adds things I never thought of, deliberates over the nuance of a particular ideal and straightens out my thinking.Perhaps it is the title of the blog - the apparent insistence that I know the path the reader must tread, that I am demanding that the reader tread it and that if the reader refuses, the reader is an idiot or a fool.Rumson, however, does not confirm the thesis. He proposes an alternative thesis ... but he doesn't ask if Holbrook agrees. He makes it clear: "This is so. There is no room for argument." That's because Rumson isn't proposing a thesis ... which is, after all, the entire point of Logan's play. Rumson knows. That's why, when Holbrook answers that he doesn't agree, Rumson doesn't care. He gets to the root of it. Holbrook doesn't agree because Holbrook doesn't understand.[T]here IS a path. One that we are walking upon together, arguing, challenging one another, pointing out details along the route. Don't piggy-back on my blog and offer an alternative method for 'how you do it.' I am writing here about how I do it. Either address my method, or go write your idea on your blog.I don't care that the reader agrees. The response, "I agree with some of what Alexis writes, but not all of it," is pure Holbrook. I am not Holbrook. I am Rumson. Rumson knows.I don't care that the reader agrees. Feel free to agree with me and expand on what I've written. If you want to disagree with me, fine. Do so. I better see a source or a credibly prescient example from your personal experience, and that example better be specific, detailed and ungeneralized. It better be in the first three sentences, too.[T]here IS a path. One that we are walking upon together, arguing, challenging one another, pointing out details along the route. It better be in the first three sentences.I am Rumson. Rumson knows.How odd that there are people still who seem to believe that I am preaching the 'one true way.' Sources: http://tao-dnd.blogspot.ca/2014/03/rumson.html; http://tao-dnd.blogspot.ca/2014/11/the-one-true-tao.html; https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3871409676946408069&postID=7569953836317449934&isPopup=true - this last is the comments form for Alexis' [Rumson's] blog, which demands that you feel free to agree with him, or, if not, present a cogent, detailed, and well-referenced argument in three sentences. Rumson is right in Logan's play because the author deems that this is the case, and unless you assume that you have a special relationship with the "author" of reality, one should not assume that they are right simply on the basis of their pronouncements. Para 3, above, is almost the definition of "one true way", and the insistence of Alexis that he is Rumson (Rumson knows) should make things clear. There is a reason people believe Alexis is preaching "one true way". But it is not clear to Alexis.

Friday, 14 November 2014

We often make predictions, but how often do we go back to
see how accurate they were? Alexis did me a solid this morning by reminding me
of this blog post that I responded to way back in 2012. I am pretty sure that wasn’t Alexis’
intention, but let’s treat it as if it were.

My base prediction was:

It
wasn’t the fault of fans that a toxic atmosphere was created, nor is it the
fault of fans that 4e wasn’t well-received. Nor will the success or failure of
D&D Next be due to anything other than the success or failure of WotC to
put out a good product, market that product well, and undo to whatever extent
they are able the ill-will their handling of the 4e release created.

And
they have definitely taken some steps in the right direction, although I think
that the NDAs for the beta playtest are a really bad idea (not required by most
recent rpgs, including Pathfinder and Dungeon Crawl Classics, despite Mike
Mearls’ claim to the contrary), and I don’t think 5e will fly without the OGL.

The
systems that are doing well right now have the right combination of “good
system + goodwill”, and I don’t think Hasbro is going to allow WotC the leeway
needed to recreate the goodwill that was seen with the advent of 3e.

The rest of the
discussion is actually, I think, worth reading. You will notice quite a bit of “IMHO”
and “I think”, and this is largely because, as is obvious, no one can really be
so sure what the future holds!

(1) The
success or failure of D&D Next (now 5e) is the result of a combination of
the product and of the goodwill WotC can generate.

If comments from Mike
Mearls are anything to go by, 5e is a real success, and Hasbro is happy that
target numbers have been reached. I doubt that anyone is going to claim that
this is the result of “toxic fans” or a lack of good will towards WotC. In
fact, between the time that I wrote my responses in the blog post and the
release of 5e, WotC went out of its way to address the ill will generated with
the 4e release strategy.

It is of interest to me
that Mike Mearls continues to hedge in relation to the OGL, or what licensing
5e will eventually have. This suggests rather strongly that, despite 5e
materials being created right now under the OGL, the system will have a
different licensing arrangement. A return to the OGL would have been announced
early, because it would generate interest and goodwill. On the other hand, by deferring the question,
WotC can hope to build up enough interest and goodwill related to the system
itself that, whatever the eventual licensing, people will be too invested to
quit.

And that was, AFAICT,
the initial scheme: Play it for a year,
and then we’ll tell you the details about the licensing. Maybe.

(2) The NDA
was a bone-headed move.

The NDA did was prevent
prolific and prominent bloggers from discussing D&D Next explicitly. It was
violated almost immediately, and anyone who wanted them could easily obtain the
playtest materials.

But, in this case,
perhaps that was the point. By making these materials appear hard to obtain
(and that clandestinely), WotC may well have raised the interest in 5e in a way
that an open playtest would not have.

(3) Hasbro
will not allow the leeway needed to give 5e the goodwill seen with 3e’s
release.

The jury’s still out on
this. Certainly, that 5e is a better system than 3e or 4e has been touted
regularly on various blogs and forums. Equally certainly, renewing access to
early editions in PDF (and sometimes print) formats has generated a lot of
goodwill. There is certainly a sense that WotC is listening.

As an obvious corollary, if 5e is wildly successful, that will be
because of Wizards, not because of the fans. They will have produced and
marketed a good product, and overcome the ill-will generated around the release
of 4e. It will be an achievement.

Yes, I said that. So
far, WotC does seem to have managed that achievement. In part, I suspect, by
postponing the licensing announcements until player investment is heavy.

For 5e to be “D&D
Next” it needs to feel like coming home…like a game that DM’s can take ownership
of. It needs to not feel like a game you play only at the whims of WotC’s legal
department.

I still hold this to be
true. Whether or not DMs will feel that ownership once they discover the
licensing terms is a whole ‘nother matter.

Well, I already know my
opinions. Please “hijack” this blog by telling me what you think. I promise not to perma-ban anyone for not simply regurgitating my own thoughts!*

*And, yes, Alexis, that is me tweaking your nose. And no, I did not discover your blog post by searching from "searching for a name" on Google to stir up some controversy in order to maintain readership. Your blog is still on my reading list because, despite the many posts about how everyone else sucks, you do occasionally have very interesting things to say.

Monday, 10 November 2014

"It is the spirit of the game, not the letter of the rules, which is important. Never hold to the letter written, nor allow some barracks room lawyer to force quotations from the rule book upon you, if it goes against the obvious intent of the game. As you hew the line with respect to conformity to major systems and uniformity of play in general, also be certain that the game is mastered by you and not by your players...you are the creator and final arbiter."

- Gary Gygax, Afterword from the 1st edition DMG

These words hold true for (nearly?) all role-playing games, not just Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Rest well, Gary. You are missed.

Have you seen Doctor Who`s season finale, Death in Heaven?If not, skip this post. If so, highlight to read:Don`t be so sure that Osgood is dead. Jump back to The Day of the Doctor, and you will note that Osgood frequently used an inhaler, and the lack of inhaler indicated her Zygon duplicate. Following the ratification of a treaty between humans and Zygons, why wouldn`t Osgood-Zygon be allowed to maintain a liaison post with U.N.I.T.?No inhaler. Not Osgood.Expect the character to return.

Sunday, 9 November 2014

My youngest child, at 8 years old, is now
dipping her feet into the icy waters of role-playing games. I have, therefore,
had the delightful task of re-writing the rules to match her interests and
willingness to undertake risk. In this game, character death is off the table.
She’s just not ready for it yet, although in a few years I hope to be able to
introduce her to “harder” games.

One of the fun things about writing
material that will never be used outside your own home – no restrictions on
what you can use! So hobbits are hobbits, instead of halflings. And – why not? –
there are fraggles exploring “Outer Space” in this game ala Uncle Traveling
Matt from Fraggle Rock. And I get to use a bunch of creatures from Luke Pearson’s Hildafolk books. Fun
stuff. Did I mention that she also watches Land of the Lost, and that Sleestaks
will be encountered?

It’s nice working for publication, but it
is also very cool working for your own enjoyment. In my home Dungeon
Crawl Classics campaign, I can easily use materials from MERP,
Gamma
World, and AD&D, but if I convert these materials, I cannot publish
the results. I have also been statting out creatures, characters, items,
patrons, and spells from Appendix N fiction (and have shared some of this work
here), but the Appendix N Cyclopedia I am working on will, ultimately, be for
my reference alone. Likewise the Doctor Who rpg I am working on –
stealing the best bits from FASA, Time
Lord, and Cubicle 7, but
ultimately for in-house use only.

I do this stuff because I love it. It’s
damn nice to be able to share with all of my children.

Tuesday, 4 November 2014

When people talk about “balanced encounters”, they may mean
one of several things – anything from creating encounters that are generally appropriate
for a dungeon level (as with early D&D) to ensuring that the PCs can win
every fight with an “appropriate” risk and expenditure of resources (as with
the base assumptions of 3e and 4e).

What underlies this, of course, is a simple question: If the
PCs fail, who is responsible?

Look back through forums focused on 3e, and you will
discover all sorts of complaints about the CR system. I have not been an aficionado of 4e, but I
imagine that similar observations related to that system’s encounter budgets
also occurred. The books, essentially, offer a way for encounters to be “balanced”;
if the PCs fail it is either because the books failed, or the DM didn’t follow
the guidelines.

The first time I encountered this was in 2e, where the DM
was encouraged to fudge in order to save the PCs. In 1e, there was certainly language
that suggested that the DM was allowed to do so; in 2e the
suggestion was that the DM should do so. 1e’s “balance” was
focused around campaign-length play and mechanisms that allowed the players to
estimate their risk. A prime example of this is that, in general, the deeper
one delves, the greater the treasures and the risks. This, of course, was not
absolute – PCs may encounter “Monster Level” 3 monsters on the 1st
level of the dungeon.

Moreover, while these tools were available, reading the
advice to players in the 1e Player’s Handbook, it is clear that
players should expect the DM to try to trick them into undertaking more risk than
expected. Long sloping passages that lead down to another level without being
noticed, chutes that do the same (but obviously!), and traps that cut off
retreat are to be expected.

In 1e, not only is managing risk the player’s job, but the DM
is expected
to make this difficult. Not impossibly so – the DM is not supposed to be a
jerkwad – but difficult enough to push the players into upping their game.

The modern obsession with balanced encounters starts with
the idea that it is the GM, not the players, who must find the balance point.
In a game where the GM forces the players to dance to his tune (and thus forces
encounters upon the players, ala 3e, 4e, or most “adventure paths”), it makes
sense that the GM has an increased responsibility to make those encounters “fair”.
Applied to all gaming, though, the idea is a nightmare. Every time you hear
that the GM has “made a mistake” and has to “correct an encounter” as the
reason for fudging, the idea that the GM should balance encounters is at its
heart.

I do not like games where the book, or the GM, is supposed to balance the encounters. I like games in which the GM is supposed to allow enough context to exist (which does not, by the way, mean that the context simply appears without being sought out by the PCs) to allow the players to generally balance the encounters. And which allows the players to be wrong.

Some players will "play it safe", while others will take great risks, courting disaster in order to have a chance for great rewards. That is, to me, part of the interest of the game.

It looks like a well-dressed man in a long black suit with
tails, but its face is a stag skull with dead white eyes. It does not walk, but
crawls on all surfaces with equal ease. Once it selects a victim, it will
pursue that victim relentlessly, attempting to paralyze it with its venomous
bite (Fort DC 13 or paralyzed 1d3 rounds) in order to remove and eat its victim’s
eyes. It can remove and devour one eye each round from a helpless victim.

Once a victim is selected, the Following Thing can always
follow it, appearing 1d6 x 10’ away in a random direction each time an
insurmountable barrier is placed between it and its prey. (The judge may wait
to have the Following Thing appear so as to build up tension.) If successfully
Turned or slain, its body fades away with a high-pitched giggling noise, and it
is forced to wait 3d6 turns (30 to 180 minutes) to reform and pursue. It is
impossible to kill.

The Following Thing is only active against its selected
victim for one night; once dawn arrives the victim is no longer followed. How
it chooses its victims is unknown, but some have speculated that miscast spells
or the gods’ great disapproval might draw it. In some tales, the Following
Thing appears as a punishment, sent by forsworn patrons. Few people are ever
selected by the Following Thing more than once, and the Wise believe that there
is only one such monster in all the multiverse.

Friday, 24 October 2014

Here is a little bit of GMing philosophy - when you play in my game, I am on your side. I really hope that you do well. I just won't do anything to ensure that you do well. Want to attempt something unusual? I will entertain what seem to be reasonable arguments. I will assign what seems like a fair chance, to me. The odds are good that, if I make a ruling, that ruling is skewed in the players' favour.But the dice still fall where they may, and I will fudge neither rolls nor statistics nor monster behaviour to ensure either your success or your survival. I want you to succeed - I really do - but I want you to succeed in a meaningful way. That means giving your opponents the brains that they should have, and it means allowing bad things to happen as well as good. That means allowing a TPK to happen. And happen again. And happen again after that. Unless you do something to make it not happen.When I brought this up on DragonsFoot, I was told that this was smoke and mirrors - the GM cannot both be on the players' side and act as an impartial referee. Let me rephrase that, because what I am saying is that the GM can be on the players' side and still understand the importance of refereeing impartially. Just as a player can advocate for his character fairly, without cheating. Hoping for a good outcome does not mean you screw the game in order to ensure it occurs.If I was acting against the players, or even creating a completely impartial scenario, it would be all too easy to create situations where TPKs were inescapable. I would have a thick folder filled with the dead, and no players at the table, because, really, what would be the point? Even a "killer" dungeon like Death Frost Doom or The Tomb of Horrors is more player-friendly than a similar situation would "realistically" be.And I play games with people I like. I feel for them when they lose a beloved character. I am happy for them when they succeed beyond hope.I am on their side.But I won't do anything to make them win. And the dice may not be.And it is not always obvious to the players that I am on their side, either. It's fun when the going gets tough, and I am grinning like a hyena waiting for a wildebeest to fall. Even though I hope they find a way out, I relish the tight spot for what it is. These are not contradictory positions to take. Any player worth his salt relishes the dangerous moments as well. Although she might not be able to focus on her enjoyment of those moments at the time (being busy with trying to find a way to survive, or mourning the loss of a character), but those are the moments that are relived through gamer chatter days, months, and years later. A good GM is on the side of the players, and wants them to do well and have fun, but is not on the side of the characters. A good GM knows that pulling punches removes the value of choice from the players, just as a good GM ensures that context is available for choices, but doesn't force context on the players if they choose to ignore it/not look for it. A good GM allows the players to make choices, and allows the characters to live or die by the quality of those choices.A GM who punishes characters when the players make good choices, or coddles the characters when the players make poor choices, is undesirable. Both remove the greatest value that the tabletop game offers over other forms of entertainment.Some players may think they want easy victories, or even guaranteed victories, but handing crap like that out is not what someone on your side does.Call it tough love.

Wednesday, 15 October 2014

I’ve been a bit quiet on the blogging front because I have
been busy elsewhere. The earlier part of 2014 was slow going for me, and I
suffered massively from writer’s block. It is tough to be prolific when you
feel the words you are penning just don’t convey what you want them to. It isn’t
that I got nothing done, but everything I managed to complete was a lot more
difficult than it should have been.

The material I composed for Goodman Games’ Peril on the Purple Planet
kickstarter seems to have gotten that out of my system, and I am firing on all
cylinders again. That stuff was just easy and fun to write, and it seems to
have gotten me back into the groove. The end result is that I have a lot of
projects piled up at the end of the year, which means you’ll be seeing more
Daniel J. Bishop titles in 2015 than you did in 2014.

The initial text for FT 2: The Portsmouth Mermaid (Purple Duck Games) has been playtested,
and was well received. I was a bit concerned about how easy the text would be
to follow – I have run this sort of adventure before, where the PCs can
literally change the whole course of the game by their decisions – but this is
the first time I have tried to make sure that my notes were as useful to
another GM as they would be to me.

In a typical dungeon, descriptions of what is where, and how
it interacts, are adequate for play. In a town, you need to describe the
players and the factions, the town itself, what events will occur if the PCs
don’t change things, what events are likely, and supply a slew of material for
when the game curves unexpectedly. You’ll be getting all of that and more with The
Portsmouth Mermaid.

The next two CE Series
campaign elements for Purple Duck Games
are nearly complete. In addition, there is a nifty project Perry Fehr and I will be working on for Purple Duck.

I have some other work for Goodman Games (see the Gen
Con program guide) and Purple Duck
to get off my plate as the year closes, but everything is progressing smoothly
there. Going into 2015, there are some secret projects in the works; I have
been asked to help with something near and dear to my heart, and which I think
the DCC community will be rightly excited about. It’ll be my first time writing
for the company involved.

In my home game this Thursday, I expect more exploration of
the Anomalous
Subsurface Environment, which I am using with Dungeon Crawl Classics. The
PCs have explored most of the Gatehouse, and have opened the way to the dungeon
proper. They just began to explore the first level when the game ended last
week. I cannot praise Patrick Wetmore’s
work on ASE enough.

The Judge Js on Spellburn disagreed with me regarding The
Wizardarium of Calabraxis, which I continue to rate as a Critical Hit
and regard as the #1 “must own” adventure for DCC. YMMV. But you should absolutely also pick up Prayers
of the Forgotten and Stronghold of the Wood Giant Shaman,
also recently reviewed on Spellburn. Very, very good stuff there.

Wednesday, 1 October 2014

Three weeks ago I picked up a new player via the Dungeon
Crawl ClassicsWorld Tour 2014
program and running games at Fan Expo
Toronto. Combines with some of my existing players expressing a wish to get
their hands on firearms, or playing mutant characters, and the appearance of a
funnel adventure in Crawling Under a Broken Moon #3, I embarked a new set of
adventurers upon the path to glory, gold, and an untimely death.

Two weeks ago, I ran the first part of The Mall Maul from CUaBM#3,
a bit of awesome sauce that, frankly, I mangled in the translation. This was
due to a lack of prep on my part; although I read the adventure thoroughly, I
should have prepared some flavour text ahead of time. Perhaps I should also
have photocopied the map onto graph paper, and used coloured pencils to
indicate main thoroughfares (mall walkways), service walkways, etc. I don’t
spend enough time in malls to have done the setting justice.

For those of you not getting Crawling Under a Broken Moon,
the setting is post-Apocalyptic Umerica – think Thundarr the Barbarian
meets Mad Max meets Gamma World meets Dungeon
Crawl Classics and you won’t be that far off. In the funnel adventure,
the PCs are filling a tribute truck to buy off some raiders – when they hit 200
“tribute truck” points, they get 10 XP and level up.

There was some bitching about this from some quarters. I
have been running the game where, when the 0-level PCs hit 10 XP, they level. This
led to overly cautious play, where every item to PCs started with had to be
considered as to whether or not it could count as tribute, and the players
simply refused to explore the stranger areas of the mall until they were
absolutely sure that there was nothing left in the mall proper. Each step of
the way was handled with the sort of mind-numbing thoroughness that only comes
with not having made driven home a time limit before the raiders arrive.

By the second week, for part 2 of The Maul Maul, I was a
little better prepared. One thing that helped was a list of random items,
effectively dungeon dressing for the mall. We had ended with the defeat of the
main Malllock nest, and the tribute truck still not close to full. The second
half of the mall is cooler than the first, but it is also harder to describe.
Again, better prep in this area would have served me well. In any event, they
hit the food court, filled the truck, levelled, and we ended it there.

Some notes:

If I was doing this over, I would prep descriptions better,
and perhaps scour the Internet for applicable visuals.

Instead of dealing with TT values, I would simply have
granted 1 XP per 20 TT found, and give the players a rough idea of how full the
truck seemed to be.

I would have copied and coloured the map to give me visual
cues as an aid in describing places.

A list of random junk on the first session, to aid in
descriptions, would have helped.

I had to make calls about leveling using Crawling
Under a Broken Moon. Are mutants a race class? Can they take another
class? I ruled that they could use half-levels,
or they could use race-as-class. There was some pretty vocal bitching about
this. Tough. When options are added, if you don’t like them, don’t use them,
but don’t drag the game into a bitching match about the options you
would use if you were running the game, unless you are actually prepared to
do so.

Part 3 got off to a better start, as the players determined
that they had cleared out the mall. There was a lot of talk about them keeping
the stuff they had gotten for the tribute truck, or just keeping the tribute truck,
but in the end the fact that they liked the local priest of Kizz got them to
take his advice and leave their Podunk little town and head east towards
Denethix….the raiders work for the wizard Dundee the Crocodile Lord, and in
this part of Umerica, known as the Land of One Thousand Towers, the best you
can hope for from any wizard is that they ignore you.

Along the way to Denethix, they meet two caravan guards, and
go to rescue a merchant in the lair of several sick lion-like humanoids known
as Moktars. This leads them to a cave atop a nearby mountain, which promises
the possibility of loot. They decide to go to the closest (very poor) village
and get some help – a new batch of 0-levels for everyone. All have a group of 4
PCs (mixed 1st and 0-level), and head back up the mountain.

When last we left off, Suicidal Steve the 0-level Elf was
hit in the head with a trap made of a swinging pipe. So far, no inhabitants of
the newly-opened dungeon have reared their head, but the signs (literal signs
on doors) indicate that there may be some useful technology around somewhere.

And that is where we pick up tonight……

(In case it is unclear, I am adapting Patrick Wetmore's excellent Anomalous Subsurface Environment to Dungeon Crawl Classics. This is a good fit, especially for the post-Apocalyptic environment of Crawling Under a Broken Moon. ASE also contains the means, via Michael Curtis, to connect the world of CUaBM with one's regular game, so that this new chapter is just the long way 'round to going "home" to where the regular PCs are. I think that's cool.)

Saturday, 27 September 2014

I am going to use both versions of the scrimshaw rod from the "W is for Walrus" contest, and I am going to give both contestants a print and pdf of the adventure they will appear in (FT 2: The Portsmouth Mermaid).

Friday, 26 September 2014

Longer review: Take a simple premise: forgotten gods and alien
philosophies exist in the Appendix N, sword & Sorcery style worlds that Dungeon
Crawl Classics emulates. Sometimes, those gods are not dead, but merely
forgotten. Sometimes, they want to be worshiped again. Sometimes, bold
adventurers encounter the remains of these cults. Now devise mechanics to
reflect this.

That’s what Prayers
of the Forgotten does – provides a simple framework to create unique
mechanics for your forgotten gods, philosophies, arch-demons, and so on. The
rest of the booklet is devoted to three specific examples of the same. These specific
examples come with what are essentially mini-adventures that can be dropped in
your campaign as desired. An added bonus: The mini-adventures are not only
good, but they are diverse.

In addition
to the obvious “treasure” of becoming the favoured soul of some forgotten god,
this booklet sparked some interesting ideas for “Quest For It” adventures in my
mind. If the last component for a spell can be found from the lips of a
forgotten god, what might that god demand in exchange? What is something the
PCs want – even something as mundane as a lost sword technique – can only be
gained as a boon from a forgotten god?

Anything
that makes the judge consider the supernatural world in which the PCs operate is
a good thing. Anything that gives the judge extra tools to model the
interaction of that supernatural world with the PCs is a great thing.

This is a
great value for the money. A must have for the serious (or even the
not-so-serious) DCC judge.

Monday, 22 September 2014

Following the failure of the FTL
Communications Network and generally upheld interstellar law, it became
possible to hire out jobs that had formerly been illegal under the Terrestrial
Alliance. The “Agony Columns” are
similar to Classifieds in a newspaper, or a dating service – an individual pays
to post a request, with a contact number that is provided by the local System
Agency.

System Agencies pay a nominal fee to spike
drive ships to carry information from one system to another, thus providing
updated Agony Column information across nearby systems. The downside to this is that out-system
listings may already be filled or closed by the time they reach a local System
Agency, and it may be some time before the listing is updated. Those responding to out-system listings are
cautioned to use their own best judgement!

In some systems, the local System Agency
may use viral transportation to encode packets onto outgoing ships without the
knowledge or payment of the owners. This
is frowned on by GalSysCom, but is not illegal in most systems. A ship that discovers a System Agency packet
hidden in its computers may delete or sequester the packet without fear of
prosecution.

(Sequestering a packet prevents it from
uploading to local System Agencies, thus limiting access to the information
contained within...at least until such time as it is provided by another spike
drive ship. Parties possessing the
packet may then decrypt it in order to “claim jump” any interesting tidbits
they may find.)

The Agony Columns are used not only to
offer clandestine employment, but also list potential job offers with various
corporations and other places of employment, personal messages, birth notices,
death notices, wedding notices, and anything else a user is willing to pay 1
credit per 10 characters to post.

Saturday, 6 September 2014

43. Crypt with Demon:The passage goes 10 feet into another
chamber, some 30 feet to a side, with an archway in the centre of the right
wall. The walls are composed of
triangular burial niches, some filled with piles of bones separated by type –
you can see niches that contain only jawbones, or shinbones, or ulnas, for
example – but many seem empty. The
ceiling is about 10 feet high.

Two monkey
demons hide within the niches, one behind several skulls in a niche on the
east wall, and one in an otherwise empty niche on the north wall (which cannot
be seen into from the doorway). A 2 in 6
chance notices the first, but the second cannot be noticed until the room is
entered (1 in 6 chance) and may well have a chance to act with surprise. Monkey demons look like red-skinned
black-furred monkeys with wizened, evil, almost-human faces. Anyone bit by a
monkey demon must make a save vs. poison (Will DC 10) or permanently lose 1d4
points of Strength.

There are 300 niches in this room, but only about a
third contain bones. Searching them
takes a single character 30 minutes, and uncovers a leather bag containing 250
polished bone discs with crude faces scratched on one side of each disc. These are “money” of the Boneknapper’s Guild on Level
Three, and can be used to barter with any ghouls met in this dungeon.

Robert
E. Howard is well known for characters like Kull, Conan, Bran Mak Morn, El Borak, Cormac Mac Art and Solomon
Kane. He also wrote stories about many characters that are perhaps less
well known these days – Sailor Steve
Costigan, Professor John Kirowan,
Turlogh Dubh O’Brien, and Dark Agnes – although no less worthy. Among
those characters who have achieved less notoriety is Breckinridge Elkins, Howard’s brawny-but-not-brainy, tough-as-nails
character whose humorous Western exploits take place in and around Bear Creek,
Nevada.

I had read very few of the Breckinridge
Elkins stories prior to going camping in Algonquin Park this August, but one of
the books I brought with me was A Gent From Bear Creek*. Although more than half a continent
lies between the Sierra Nevada of Bear Creek and the Appalachians of Manly Wade Wellman’s John the Balladeer tales, it seems to
me that a “Breckinridge Elkins”-type character would fit in quite well with the
Wellman-inspired Shudder Mountains of Michael
Curtis’ The Chained Coffin.

Without further ado, then, here is
Breckinridge Elkins, statted out for the Dungeon Crawl Classics rpg.

Breckinridge Elkins is a giant grizzly bear
of a man, well over 6 feet tall. So iron is his constitution that he can drink
jug after jug of moonshine without serious inebriation, and any damage he takes
is reduced by 10 points. If any damage gets through this reduction, Elkins “gets
mad”, gaining a +1d bonus on the dice chain to both Action Dice.

Breckinridge Elkins gains a Deed Die (1d10)
as does a warrior or dwarf, and he criticals as though he were a giant.
Although his attacks can be devastating, they are never lethal – an opponent
reduced to 0 hp is knocked senseless, coming to after 1d6 rounds or minutes
(judge’s choice) with a full Hit Die restored. The character does not lose a
point of Strength, Agility, or Stamina as with the normal “Damage and Death”
rules on page 93 of the core rulebook.

Likewise, Breckinridge typically uses his Mighty
Deeds to comical effect – limiting opponent’s attacks, chawing on ears, dazing
opponents, or placing them into unsavoury circumstances. The judge is
encouraged to have Breckinridge use his Deeds to throw folks through windows,
jam them into barrels, slide them down the bar counter, or whatever else seems over
the top.

Breckinridge Elkins is incredibly strong;
it is, in fact, impossible for a normal human being, unaided by magic, to beat
him in a Strength check. Even against a superhuman character, such as Lin
Carter’s Ganelon Silvermane, Elkins adds his Deed Die +5 to any Strength check.
He has been known to break through solid timber walls, carry his mule, hurl a
mountain lion into a cabin, and throw rocks with explosive force.

Although incredibly strong and tough, the
gent from Bear Creek isn’t terribly smart, and is easily fooled. Discovering that
he has been tricked is liable to make him mad, however, and an angry
Breckinridge Elkins has been the end to many a villainous scheme.

Finally, if reduced to 0 hp, Breckinridge
Elkins is merely stunned, and sits down, falls down, or wanders off as the
judge deems appropriate. He recovers a full Hit Die in 1d6 minutes, or
immediately upon being attacked. He regains another Hit Die each hour until his
full Hit Dice are restored. Breckinridge Elkins may well be impossible to kill.

If the judge’s campaign includes firearms,
Breckinridge usually has a primitive cap-and-ball pistol on his person.

Cap’n Kidd is Breckinridge Elkin’s horse –
the only horse strong enough to carry him. He allows only Breckinridge or Glory
McGraw to ride him, and in Breckinridge’s case, Cap’n Kidd bucks or rolls a few
times before he can be ridden. Anyone who attempts to ride Cap’n Kidd is targeted
by a single hoof or bite attack as a free action, and must make a DC 20 Reflex
save or Strength check to get on the horse’s back. Failure allows another try,
but Cap’n Kidd gains another free attack. Once on the horse, the would-be rider
must succeed in 3d7 Strength checks (DC 1d10+10) or be thrown from the horse
for 2d6 damage (with any natural “6” indicating a broken bone).

Similarly to Breckinridge Elkins, Cap’n
Kidd ignores the first 5 points of damage from any source, and if reduced to 0
hp is merely dazed, gaining a full Hit Die back in 1d6 minutes. If a PC reduces
Cap’n Kidd to 0 hp through nonlethal combat, the horse should allow itself to
be ridden by that PC, much to the amazement of all around (especially Elkins).

Glory McGraw is Breckinridge Elkin’s love
interest. Although not as physically intimidating as the gent from Bear Creek,
she also has a Deed Die (1d5), and probably cannot be killed. I leave this last
to the judge’s discretion.

It is highly recommended that the judge
read some of Howard’s original prose before running these characters. Further
inspiration can be found here or especially here.

* It should be noted that the stories in A
Gent From Bear Creek were not all originally Breckinridge Elkins
stories. The collection reworks some stories from similar Howard characters
into Elkins stories, in the same way that the Conan stories were padded out
with edited stories originally attached to other Howard characters.

Wednesday, 3 September 2014

As
previously mentioned, I was scheduled to run three games at Fan Expo 2014,
having been asked to volunteer by the wonderful folks in the Toronto Area Gamers.

On Friday, I
was scheduled to run The Imperishable Sorceress, which
had been published as a Free RPG Day adventure by Goodman Games in 2013. On Saturday, I was scheduled to run The
Arwich Grinder, which appeared in Crawl #9. On Sunday, I was scheduled
to run The Thing in the Chimney, which was initially available as a
free adventure for Christmas 2012, and then made a part of Perils of the Cinder Claws,
along with a sequel adventure, by Purple
Duck Games for the 2013 holidays.

Friday went
well, with a TPK occurring in the cold halls of Ivrian the Unkind. The players
failed to listen to Ivrian’s instructions, and the cleric attempted to invoke
divine power to deal with the first demon. And failed. They also failed to
obtain almost all of the treasures that could have helped them with the
adventure – being initially afraid even to touch the magic sword. With very
little oomph left to the group, the
survivors perished when they met the waspmires on the face of the Cleft
Mountain. Still, it was fun.

Saturday, I
started with five players, but one was taking care of a baby. One should not
take care of a baby and play in The Arwich Grinder. He bowed out
when they reached the attic. Of the remaining 16 0-level PCs entering the
funnel, 14 were still alive when we were warned that the room was going to
close about 45 minutes before the game was scheduled to end. They had just
begun to examine “Hell on Earth”, so they might not have done as well if we had
continued. Still, it was amazingly impressive, as the dice showed the game’s
Judge no love, and player caution prevented them from doing anything truly
stupid. And it was a lot of fun. Letting the dice fall where they may, if
nothing else, ensured that the players knew how exceptionally lucky their
0-level PCs really were.

Sunday, I
didn’t have enough sign-ups to run through The Thing in the Chimney, but
last-minute players allowed me to run for a foursome. They burned through the
adventure, avoiding most of the potential combats, but all dropped when a pair
of hands came from the chimney. “You are drawn up into the chimney, one by one.
There are some crunching sounds. Then your boots fall into the ashes.” Lovely.
Especially in contrast to the humorous tone of the rest of the scenario.

Because
there was so much time left, I ruled that the fruitcake helped them (because
the halfling ate it all), giving each 2d6 hit points back, and allowed them to
face the Cinder Claws himself. Yes, this was a fudge – but it was also a fudge
in a one-shot game, where everyone knew it was a fudge (no lying about it!) and
agreed to turn the clock back. They also knew what the “real” events had been.

In the
ensuing battle, two PCs dropped again before the Cinder Claws was defeated.
When rolled over, after being dragged through the portal, they were discovered
to be dead. A fruitcake can only do so much.

But the
players had burned through the adventure so quickly that I still had half the
time left. And they were asking if I had another scenario on me. Having the
core rules, I had them generate three 0-level PCs each and ran them through Joseph Goodman’s The Portal Under the Stars.
It was well received. In the end, two new “heroes” emerged from the adventure
site, and they were the two who ran.

One of the
players then asked if he could join my weekly game. This was a young gentleman
who had never played DCC before, but
who really liked the pace of the game. A lot of things can happen, and you don’t
always know what they are going to be!

NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS

I was
recognized from having run other DCC
promo events in the past, which was nice.

You can,
apparently, be voted MVP by the other players if you do a good job role-playing
being cursed with a desire to eat human flesh.

The big draw
this year seemed to be 5E, but Pathfinder retains a strong hold on the
Toronto crowd. I didn’t see anyone playing older edition games, which was a bit
sad.

The Goodman Games swag program continues to
surprise players. I was repeatedly forced to tell people that, really, they
could have that mechanical pencil, that button, those bookmarks, that graph
paper, etc., because the publisher provided it to me to give away to players.

It was very
kind of the Toronto Area Gamers
group to invite me to run games this year, and I would certainly be willing to
do so in the future. Next time, though, I will be running all-new
never-before-seen material, and players willing to chance their PCs’ fates on
the dice and my gentle adventure designs may be able to gain playtest credits
as a result!

Monday, 11 August 2014

Having foolishly messed up the obvious, and not used my post
on the Wampler as my “W is for…” post, I give you the humble walrus. These mammals, closely related to true seals,
runs between 1,800 and 3,700 pounds for a male for a Pacific walrus, with
occasionally larger one’s showing up.

Wikipedia tells us that “In 1909, a walrus hide weighing 500 kg (1,100 lb)
was collected from an enormous bull in Franz Josef Land, while in August 1910,
Jack Woodson shot a 4.9 m (16 ft) long walrus, harvesting its 450 kg (1,000 lb)
hide. Since a walrus's hide usually accounts for about 20% of its body weight,
the total body mass of these two giants is estimated to have been at least
2,300 kg (5,000 lb).”

Atlantic walruses are a bit smaller, the males clocking
in at an average 2,000 pounds. That’s still plenty big.

Some walruses hunt seals, and there have been stories of walruses
hunting humans as well, folklore from regions in which these mammals are
common. A walrus can take down a fur seal far larger than the average human,
and in the excellent BBC Planet Earth documentary series, you can see how a polar bear fares against a walrus colony.

In the real world, people have hunted walruses for food,
skins, oil, and ivory. In the fantasy world of Dungeon Crawl Classics,
far more aggressive hunting walruses may exist, hunting the hunters in turn. The
red walruses of the Blood Ice, for instance, are as much a menace as they are a
resource. A spirit-driven walrus may hunt people because it is compelled by the
evil that possesses it.

This is a rod made of walrus tusk ivory, carved with
scrimshaw figures. Post a description, including what it does, in the Comments,
below. Use the rules system of your choice; just indicate what it is. It needs
to be your own work.

Contest ends on 1 September 2014. At that time, two winners
will be announced. One will be the item I pick as the (subjectively) “best” of
those offered; the other will be random-rolled from the remainder. Each winner
will receive a complimentary pdf of any Purple
Duck Games or Mystic Bull product
I have worked on, which I will provide.

In addition, I will work the “best” entry into FT 2:
The Portsmouth Mermaid (converted to DCC, if necessary), properly
credited, and I will send the author of that entry a free pdf and print copy of
the module when it is released.

Friday, 8 August 2014

An experiment is live on RPG Now as of now.And it is Pay What You Want, which means Free unless you feel like paying anything.Welcome to the Dungeon of Crows, a megadungeon for Labyrinth Lord and other Old School Role-Playing Games! I have included both ascending and descending AC, as well as additional saving throw information (Fort, Reflex, and Will, ala 3.x and similar games) to make conversion easy.Within you will find what remains of the Skullheap Goblins, a few vermin known and surprising, a mysterious rhizomatic growth, and the blue and red goop PCs will surely interact with.This product contains the first 28 encounter areas, as well as a map for the western half of Level 1. (The eastern half requires navigating the underground lake, or coming up from below.)If you liked my previous stuff, you might like this. Really.Pay What You Want. If there is enough interest, I will continue.

Wednesday, 6 August 2014

Rosters of players who may or may not make specific sessions due to the vagaries of work, school, and family commitments are a recurrent problem for the modern judge. Simply put, not everyone can make every game night, and sometimes you find yourself being asked to run two separate groups of players on different nights of the week.

Last week, with just two players available, I hauled out Barrowmaze and Barrowmaze II, and allowed the players to create new 0-level characters to go exploring. They stayed as near to the surface as possible, exploring barrow mounds and having random encounters, until at last the survivors reached 1st level. Then they skedaddled back to Helix.

(As an interesting aside, they actually managed to start on the Barrowmaze II hexmap, thus ending up in more dangerous territory and discovering some nice treasures.)

Tonight, with the same two players being the only ones who could attend, and being asked to allow their characters to do something other than the Barrowmaze (which they frankly view as a death trap!) I offered them another dungeon - Stonehell - to the west toward the mountains, while the Barrowmaze was towards the east. I made each player roll 1d20 on both the Barrowmaze and the Stonehell rumour charts. They decided to attempt Stonehell on the basis of the rumoured kobold market.

One session in, the PCs have largely explored only the upper ravine area, but they had a lot of fun. Coal is dead (nearly taking the warrior with him), one PC is hoping to raise a wolf cub (he is a halfling keeper of the hounds, and lost 9 teeth to critical hits during the battle with the older wolves!), and they still haven't dared to enter the dark archway that leads to Stonehell proper.

It amazes me to hear some folks say that Dungeon Crawl Classics doesn't mesh well with megadungeons - or vice versa. So long as the players have options, and so long as the area is interesting, my experience is that they work very well together. I have had a lot of fun with DCC and Barrowmaze, and tonight's fun with Stonehell is fresh in my mind as I write this. DCC characters are bad-asses compared to their Labyrinth Lord equivalent, but the unknown effects of die rolls can change a battle from a cakewalk to a nail-biter.

That Helix just became this unhappy village smack-dab between two of the most dangerous places in the world (at least, so far as these PCs know!) also helps bring the world alive for the players. What a place to call home!

Monday, 4 August 2014

If you posted a comment here, and got your email address to me, you should have one shiny new mathom in your Inbox. I hope you enjoy it.If you commented, and sent your email, and for some reason find nothing in your Inbox, please email me directly so that I may rectify the situation.Happy Monday!

Saturday, 2 August 2014

Related to this post, the 2014 mathom is completed, bookmarked, and ready to send on Monday. Contents include an adventure, some converted monsters, and a few items from Appendix N authors given stats for Dungeon Crawl Classics.The deadline to qualify for the mathom is whenever I wake up Monday morning. Once I send the email, that's it.

Friday, 1 August 2014

Ennies voting is closed, and whoever has won has won. Winners to be announced on 15 August at Gen Con.
I would like to thank everyone who voted (especially everyone who voted for Prince Charming, Reanimator!) and offer a hearty congratulations to all the winners, whoever they should turn out to be.This community really is the best.

Wednesday, 30 July 2014

Description: As the adventurers pass through a mundane door, they are startled to find themselves unexpectedly in a frozen landscape. A distant woman’s voice whispers a welcome, and the characters are thrust into a tale of spirits and ancient secrets.

Players: 3-5

Times: Friday 2-6

Game Name: DCC: The Arwich Grinder

Game System: Dungeon Crawl Classics

Description: The Curwen Family have lived up among the pine woods on the outskirts of Arwich Village for as long as the oldest village gaffers can remember. The beautiful Bessie Curwen's bonnet is found in a strange creature's grasp. The village owes much to her family, so someone must go up into the dark pine-clad hills to make sure that the Curwens are all right. After all, the Curwens saved the village from starvation two winters ago. If you do not go, who will?

The Arwich Grinder is a Lovecraftean 0-level funnel for the DCC RPG written by Daniel J. Bishop and published in Crawl #9.

Players: 3-5

Times: Saturday 7-11

Game Name: DCC: The Thing in the Chimney

Game System: Dungeon Crawl Classics

Description: At the waning of every year, as the sun grows closer to the horizon, and spends less time in the sky, there comes a time of terrible cold and deep snow to the lands of the north. The world waits with hushed breath for this, the longest night of the year, to be over. Soon, the sun will begin to climb higher each day, and the days grow longer. Although long stretches of cold weather are yet to come, this is the night in which winter’s back is broken. After tonight, the world turns slowly back to warmth and light.

But that is after tonight.

A 1st level DCC adventure with a holiday theme, published by Purple Duck Games and run by its author.

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